My name is Wayne W. Smith and this blog contains my musings related to higher education, tourism and anything else that comes to mind. I invite you to scroll down and laugh where appropriate, cry when necessary but always remember to consider the source.

Friday, January 6, 2012

Friday Fragment - v8

Once again, thanks to Mrs. 444's for hosting FF - you can click either here or the button below to see more frags.

On the bus this morning, I had the most interesting conversation with the driver Scott about the phenomenon known as Deja vu.

One possible explanation for the phenomenon is that one is seeing slights tears in the time/space continuum. If one believes existence occurs on multiple plains than this makes sense.

Another postulation is that there is indeed a deity who provides us views in order to help us understand ourselves and the world around us.

My personal theory of the phenomenon is more in the behavioral psychology realm. Personally, I think we are get good at the predicting behavior of others at the subconscious level. When a given situation occurs and when our predictions are proven to be extremely accurate, we concoct this idea that we have seen this before in order to easily explain the situation away.

You may now discuss your theory of choice among yourselves...

Speaking of weird moments - yesterday was one large one featuring a special guest star - 'role reversal.' My wife came to meet me for lunch and met one of my colleagues in the hall. She got into a whole discussion of research and blogging while I was off chasing the little one down the hall. Later in the day she informed me that she want to attend a conference in May. Did I want to come and take the kids while she was attending her conference. A fun day!

Continuing on, when did becoming a university professor require a computer science degree? Yesterday, I found myself designing my course websites, using our learning management software. Heck I even added a QR code to my syllabus...

The word of the week - troglobiont. What I feel like since I am working with all of this potential technology.

I have always maintained that being an elementary school teacher means leaving your tech skills at the door... there are things I can do at home without issue and when I try to do it at school... FAIL EVERY TIME... that could be because the equipment is older than me, but still...

QR codes are interesting to me. Since I only just got a smart phone, I had little interest. Now, though, I've spearheaded an exciting project to have middle school students make QR codes for local businesses, free of charge. Our school is in a small, rural community that has businesses that contribute so much to our schools. It's going to be a great way to give back and teach business skills to kids. It sure is tough to keep up with all the changing technology. Good job, Wayne :)